Reports from Valentine Michael Smith, the man from Mars.

Tsunami Prompts New Emergency Preparedness Plan *

With Bermuda having escaped relatively unscathed from the recent 40 metre tsunami waves, government has acted swiftly to devise a new national emergency plan.

Premier’s Action National Incident Contingency (PANIC) Plan will be put into action in all disaster situations, whether natural or caused by malevolent guest workers.

The PANIC Plan will incorporate the Premier’s Emergency Escape Plan (PEEP) to ensure that Bermuda’s leadership is safely off-island in the event of hurricanes, floods or Canadian accountant uprisings.

“Typically, it is ensured that the leader is off-island in emergency situations, as we saw with last year’s hurricane,” said PANIC Plan overseer Corporal Barmy.

“Unfortunately, the tsunami emergency was unplanned and our leader was unable to escape the island. PANIC will improve our response in this situation.”

The PANIC Plan will ensure that people are suitably informed and aware of what to do in an emergency. It covers emergency services response, communications and evacuation situations.

PANIC prioritises rescue and evacuation to ensure minimal losses. The optimum evacuation point has been determined to be Gibbs Hill, with plans to relocate the Goslings warehouse there immediately to a purpose-built underground bunker.

Gibbs Hill is to be marked with colour coded lines so people will know their place. Top of the hill will be Government Ministers (gold line), then Born Bermudians (blue line), with subsequent sections for Other Bermudians (white line), Spouses of Bermudians (yellow), People Who Look Like Bermudians (purple – see definitions to be posted on scooters and bus stops around the island), tourists (pink line) and then guest workers (red line).

The PANIC Plan can be activated by any Bermudian encountering a national emergency, simply by following the CHAOS steps:

CELLPHONE – call or text everyone you know to ensure that Digihell’s capacity is used to the max.HAIR – ensure your style is ready for all those media interviews.AUNTIE – make sure you inform your aunties, it would be rude not to.OFFICIALS – inform the appropriate emergency services such as police, fire services and VSB.STAMPEDE – get to your assigned position at Gibbs Hill.

“It is never too soon to invoke PANIC or CHAOS,” said Corporal Barmy. “The sooner we start PANIC, the sooner we can get the Premier on the BA flight and avoid unnecessary loss of life and frequent flyer points.”

While he put no limit on the type of situations where PANIC would be appropriate, he singled out hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, avalanches, terrorist sous-chefs and rioting Philippino nannies as especially PANIC-worthy incidents.

Phase 2 of PANIC preparedness will include acquisition of $36 million of Louis Vuitton gas masks for those entitled to survive higher level attacks. It will also incorporate compulsory conscription of expats to work camps to build escape tunnels from the Cabinet Building to the airport and Gibbs Hill.

When PANIC has been launched, warns Corporal Barmy, to avoid road congestion, only government workers will be entitled to use cars. Bermudians will be entitled to use mopeds, SoBs will be entitled to catch a pink bus (coupons only, no cash allowed) and foreigners should travel on foot or just wait to be rescued.

In emergencies, regular updates will be posted by Bermuda’s bloggers.

The full PANIC plan can be found posted at government buildings and will be on the government website when someone can figure out how.

Tokunbo needs to go back too, where the hell he come from? Spanish Point? Summasat Breedge? Um gattin vaxed. Personally, I think he just wants to get rid of cases on his docket. He confessed, big deal. He should have confessed too me and he would have been dealt with in a 'penal'colony. And if you don't get the 'point' well, I can assure you he would miss it for a while.

Update: Mike is in touch with the hosting company, trying to convince them to install appropriate updates so that he can restore the forum without losing a significant number of posts. The alternative would have been to restore a previous backup - this could have been done today but would have lost a couple of weeks of posts. That's way too much wisdom to lose without trying all alternatives.

Speaking of police boat, while driving to Hamilton yesterday, I saw 4 police cars by the water at Ferry Reach opposite the airport looking at a police boat being brought up on land for transport somewhere. I said to myself, surely they must have something better to do... well I found out a while later waiting at the gas pump at Blue Hole, one police car was pushing all the traffic to one side, one police car was escorting the boat in front and two cars were escorting in the back. I just stood there and laughed, so did other patrons of the gas station. You would have thought they were moving the Queen Mary or something...

Hi Mike,
Hope you check your comments and see this. I have a problem with registration at your message board. I never got my email and when I do it over it tells me the message was sent. But my name is at the bottom as a new member, and I even have a profile! I looked all over for some way to tell somebody about this......well, if you see this could you please drop me a note.......I am a Bermudian who has lived in the states for almost 30 years and sometimes I get homesick for ye ole rock.......thanks

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